I use it as explanation for something new I’m doing. Today I head over toward the pushpin to the right . . . Narragansett Bay, where I board a small passenger ship that has hired me as onboard lecturer. By July 12, we expect to be in Chicago via the route indicated. I am thrilled! The red dots are overnight stops, and the greenish ones are daytime stops for such tasks as lowering and raising the wheelhouse.

Here was Grande Mariner along the west side of Manhattan back in May 2016,

and here are two shots of her sister vessel farther upstate taken in 2013 and 2014.

The challenge I’m giving myself is to post each day of the westward journey, using photos from that day. Note that these ships with telescoping wheelhouse are truly Eriemax, designed to carry 100 souls along inland waterways on weeks-long voyages. My job is to present lectures every other day on topics ranging from wars along these waterways to 19th century canal fever to the storied and obscure cast of characters who lived along the waterways (e.g.., Seeger, Fulton, Rockefeller, Freed, Stanton, Tecumseh, Brock, Hanks) . . . to –of course–the variety of shipping working there.

In a way, it’s a 21st century version of the D & C route for which there’s the poster below.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, just know I’m hoping to be somewhere along that route.

Part of the way up in the Chesapeake watershed, Roaring Bull works daily for the better part of the year. Take a ride on it. from Harrisburg I-81, it’s a mere 30 miles north. From West Milton I-80, 40 miles south.

One of the joys of driving is the serendipity–even if guided . . . thanks, GT–of noticing the entirely unexpected, like the device below. Any ideas? If GT hadn’t mentioned this, I probably would not have thought twice about this weathered industrial object. And it’s for sale. For the right price, it can be on your boat.

A clue is that the device above is located geographically between the tin building below and Boston, where this road trip ends. The tin building is Gallery 53 on Rocky Neck. I’m guessing it once had a seafood related purpose.

A bit down the coast is Salem. The brick building with cupola in the distance is the old Custom House, where Nathaniel Hawthorne once worked.

And here we are at the end of this stretch of road . . . it’s Roxbury High Fort aka the Cochituate Standpipe.

So here we are . . . it’s a whistle from the SS United States! Are there any developments in her refurbishing? For some interior shots of her I took two years ago, click here. Here are some other photos taken on the SS United States.

As to the particulars on the whistle, here’s what I learned this morning from SW: “The whistle from the United States is a Leslie Tyfon, size 300DVE-5. [Click on that link to hear one of these.] It was purchased in 1986 by my uncle at auction I believe through Marine Technologies Brokerage Corp. out of N.Y. We have a letter of authenticity and it is currently for sale to the best offer. Last recorded offer was $10,000.00. We feel it is much more valuable. It was on of three steam whistles from the forward stack of the ocean liner. My uncle purchased the large forward whistle. Thanks for your curiosity.”

All photos taken by Will Van Dorp.

Many thanks to GT for the heads up and to Steve for the info on whistle.

Visiting Gloucester for me is always restorative. Here are a few more photos I took Saturday and Sunday of

Artemis,

Full Moon,

and Adventure. That’s a great sequence of names!

Last fall she was sailing with some food cargo here. And if I had an editor, that editor would be unhappy, because yesterday I suggested I’d seen Adventure in Boothbay last October. Mea culpa . . . I saw Ernestina! Click here for a fairly active blog with updates on the work on Ernestina.

Lady Jane and

Ardelle . . . have fishing origins. Ardelle is of course the older design but a much newer boat, and I DID see her in Boothbay, off the stern of Ernrstina.

Ardelle touched the water in summer of 2011. See some of her history here.

When I took these photos of other pinky schooners in Essex in November 2009, Ardelle existed (maybe) only in plans.

I’m not sure where Maine and Essex are today–maybe right here–but as much as I enjoy seeing hulls out of the water, I’d rather see them afloat and underway.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has photos of yet another pinky tomorrow.

Way too many years ago I made a trip back to Gloucester, as posted about here. So I went back this weekend, had long talks with a few people, but of course that means I didn’t see all the people I would have liked to. And although putting up these photos seems like walking on a concrete slab before it’s set, here I go, premature or not.

It’s the old 1952 Blue Ocean alongside some newer yachts. This is the transition in Gloucester.

Here’s looking south toward Rocky Neck. From left, it’s lobster boat Blivy Fish, Fort Point, and Disch’s old Dredge No. 200. Click here for a post I did in 2009 showing the No. 200 in the KVK. After the company owner died, the Disch equipment was auctioned off to the four winds. One of Disch’s small tugs is on the Lake Erie now. Fort Point used to be Patrick J. Hunt.

Waiting to go back in soon are Irish Piper and UB88, whose story you can find here on the GMG site. More on GMG a little later.

F. H. Lane used to paint this scene. Near the left, you see Our Lady of the Good Voyage, but lower, more left I see a pinky stern and some interesting vessels made to the prominent dock. Adventure‘s returned from Boothbay, where I saw both the black-hulled schooner and the pinky here. More on these tomorrow.

Here’s the reciprocal shot, showing the bow of Adventure, which has a 90th year gala coming up in less than a month, and a closer-up of the old motor life boat. Anyone tell anything about her? I know someone who probably can. Here’s another set of rebuilds.

And here’s the home base for many things in Gloucester, including lobsters and community. Cheers, Joey C. and GMG . . . Good Morning Gloucester.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Back in 1987, I took a leave from work (nearby in Newburyport) one morning to see a large Soviet factory ship that had finally been granted permission for shore leave in Gloucester after working offshore for months. Here’s an article about that time. Does anyone have photos to share of that? I recall the chill I got seeing the hammer and sickle on the stack as she was tied up behind Gortons. I didn’t carry a camera much back then.

Traffic backed up. But in Schiedam it’s because of a drawbridge that’s up to allow a self-propelled barge to back out. More on that later. That windmill? It’s at the Nolet distillery, a Ketel One facility that makes many spirits besides vodka.

returning to the main waterway after delivering one of two loads of sand per day to the glass-making plant just up the creek from Ketel One.

But Hercules is the reason I’m here today. The big steam vessel event is only a month and some away, so it’s painting and refurbishing time to prepare her. For a larger set of photos of the preparations, including the mounting of a new mast created out of an old spar by Fred Trooster, click here.

Here is a set of photos I took of Hercules two years ago at the steam festival.

The barge being towed here is loaded upside and down below with smaller steam engine applications.

Click on the photo below to hear how silently she runs.

To keep her running, the owner Kees Boekweit needs to fabricate some of the parts himself. He works as a steam engineer over at –you guessed it–Ketel One. Click on the photo below to see a shorter video of her running on the North Sea.

Here are the fireboxes under the boiler.

Here is a cold firebox and

an empty coal pocket.

And one last glimpse of traffic on the main waterway here, Friday last Ovation of the Sea arrived in Rotterdam for the first time. See eight minutes of edited tape here. By the way, the KRVE boats are the line handlers. Clearly, though, the tugs steal the show providing what I’ll call a “Dutch welcome,” to coin a phrase.

This is a 1959 vessel with a rich and varied career. Click here for photos from a maritime festival last year, and here (scroll) with info about her sojourn in the US.

Click on the photo below to hear her run.

Click here to watch a 20-minute video documenting her meeting a near-sister a few years back. The sister has been converted into a private yacht. See them together here. The next two photos I took in NL in 2014.

That’s Fred Trooster and me in the photo below; thanks Fred for the invitation to come aboard Elbe.

Marginally related, I wonder when a similar pilot boat–Wega–will leave its custody in Rio here (and scroll).

Also, marginally related and in response to a question from sfdi1947, click here for interactive navigation charts (waterkaarten or vaarkaarten) for Dutch inland waters, fun to play with but likely not guaranteed for actual use.

Now let’s bounce back south of Leiden, west of Rotterdam . . . to Maassluis. Notice all the gray color upper left side of the aerial below . . . all greenhouses! I have lots of fun looking at this part of NL by google map.

At the center of Maassluis . . . you guessed it, there’s an island called Church Island, because

So let’s go inland a ways and look around. I actually want to make the point that even in the smaller interior cities the water connection is strong.

See Amsterdam on the left? Slightly northeast all the way across the map, you see a city called Zwolle. To drive from Amsterdam to Zwolle is about 60 miles. And that “island” you see in between the two cities is actually reclaimed land, a polder that used to be the bottom on the Zuider Zee. That particular polder is called Flevoland, but I digress.

Today’s post focuses on Zwolle, a city about the same size as Leiden. Its name actually comes from the same word that in English is “swollen.” But more on that later. Once again, notice the moat, i.e., water and therefore boats.

All kinds of boats, and incentives for tourist-attracting traditional boats lining the moat.

Enclosed by the moat was once a walled city. Here’s a remnant of the wall; notice the reddish-hulled vessel under the flags to the right.

Below is looking through the arch which is visible on the left side of the photo above. The tower in the wall holds . . . what else, an Italian restaurant. A throwback to the Romans who managed to get behind enemy lines back in in “barbarian” times? That’s a joke.

Let’s jump across the moat and see this from the outside. That boat is called “de verhalenboot,” which translates as “the story boat.” Here’s a googletranslated version of their site. They have a matching tender.

Here, notice the “story boat” in the center? To the left is the “pannenkoeken boot,” i.e., a restaurant boat noted for its pancakes. I posted about them in Amsterdam two years ago here.

There’s the piano again to the extreme right. It’s landside of Thor, cultuurschip. Here’s the googletranslated version of their webpage; their 2016 season just started. This is Zwolle’s version of the sixth boro’s barge music, here and here. To orient you, that’s the “story boat” just beyond the vessel to Thor‘s stern.

So there’s pancakes, stories, music . . . and a pink “love you long time” craft that for 13 euros, gets you a guide, a drink, snacks, and a ride around the moat.

Here’s more of their flotilla and their translated page. Dutch and English are not that different: translate this as “cook boat.”

And as you travel around the moat, you see lots of old buildings like this one, lots here with

Of course, my nose is really for workboats, Harm and Harm 2, small tankers for the local Shell distributor.

Here, you see the sail maker’s shop, also selling “water sports articles” and built into the old city wall. And here’s my holy grail . . . the 1942 small tug named Kees. Kees is a very common name for males in Dutch.

As is true for over-the-road trucks in the US, many Dutch vessels carry owner info on a placard forward of the wheelhouse.

A similar but more primitive looking vessel here is Ceuvel. Other than that this boat was likely built in an area of Amsterdam called Ceuvel, I know nothing.

Let’s end here today with a shot of her from the stern.

More photos tomorrow from another small city in NL, this region of water as seen here and here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’d love to hear from the owners of any of these vessels and/or see building plans.

It goes without saying that the waterways here are busy and complex, as seen from this AIS grab below, showing traffic at this moment between Brussels (bottom) and Amsterdam, and between Dusseldorf and the North Sea about midway the narrowing into the English Channel to the southwest. All the photos in today’s post–as have many here–were taken just west of Rotterdam.

Even more interesting is the 10-storey cylindrical building in the background, on the land’s edge in Schiedam. It’s called De Bolder, aka the Bollard, the biggest bollard I’ve ever seen. The building, Mammoet’s offices in Schiedam, was entirely built and furnished elsewhere in greater Rotterdam port (Zwijndrecht) and then transported into its location by water!! Now that’s making a statement about a company’s mission.

Here in the same waterway recently, the Montrose Alpha platform gets a final fitting out before it heads out to the North Sea. The platform was also built in Zwijndrecht and moved to this point in the delta by at least four En Avant tugs.

A 1959 training vessel Delftshaven passes by.

Across the way, new build pipe layer Sapura Rubi is getting fitted out before joining the fleet in Brasil.

Meanwhile at the Damen Shiprepair yard in Schiedam, work is always going on, with Foresight and Patron up on the floating dry docks, and Seven Waves and Mona Swan docked.

Seven Oceans –astern of Skandi Açu–has since departed for the north of Norway. Both are pipe laying support vessels. Here is the entire DOF fleet. The 479′ Skandi Açu, crewed by up to 120 people and capable of laying pipe down to almost 10,000 feet, was christened last week and celebrated by Huisman, VARD, DOF Subsea, and Technip.

My dinghy awaits. See ya.

The first four photos come from Freek Wamandai via my friend Fred Trooster, who also took the last one. The ones in between are by Will Van Dorp.